Federal plan to clean up Chesapeake Bay could include "costly" changes for Madison County farms

Local leaders fear new regulations aimed at cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay could have a detrimental impact on small farms in southern Madison County.

The culprit is water flowing from the headwaters of the Susquehanna River located in Madison County and other Central New York counties. The water carries pollution — from farm runoff , wastewater treatment plants and the air — downstream to the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s largest estuary where fresh and salt water mix to create a unique habitat for oysters and crabs.

The 64,000-square-mile watershed includes the District of Columbia and large parts of six states. New York provides 16 percent of the fresh water in the Chesapeake Bay, flowing from a watershed that covers roughly 7,500 square miles and portions of 19 counties. The Upper Susquehanna Watershed constitutes about half of Madison County and 7 percent of Onondaga County.

In June 2000, Gov. George Pataki signed an agreement with leaders in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia and the District of Columbia in hopes of making voluntary improvements to water quality by 2010.

With the deadline past due, the federal government has stepped in, issuing regulations to limit phosphorus, nitrogen and sediment discharges that local leaders say are costly and unrealistic.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency calls the plan “a pollution diet,” designed to fully restore the bay and its network of streams, creeks and rivers by 2025. The project could cost New York as much as $250 million over the next 15 years.

A resolution passed by the Madison County Board of Supervisors earlier this month says the plan “burdens our farm communities with costly mandates, weakens our rural economies, disrupts local food systems and provides no additional water quality protection for the Chesapeake Bay watershed.”

Madison County Planning Director Scott Ingmire said small farms will bear the brunt of the regulations, which will require them to institute barnyard runoff control, composting and precision feeding plans usually reserved for larger operations.

“There will be significant monetary and time impacts to small farms,” Ingmire said.

If you go
The federal Environmental Protection Agency will hold hearings on its proposed regulations to protect the Chesapeake Bay. The regulations will affect parts of Madison and Onondaga counties as well as counties south of Central New York: